Kimberly Peirce

Kimberly Peirce (born September 8, 1967), is an American film director, notable for her debut feature, "Boys Don't Cry" (1999). Her second feature, "Stop-Loss", has been released by Paramount Pictures on March 28, 2008 in the USA and in Canada.

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Peirce grew up in a trailer park.Fact|date=March 2008 She graduated from Miami Sunset High School in Miami, Florida and attended the University of Chicago, earning a degree in English and Japanese Literature.Fact|date=March 2008 She moved for several years to Kobe, Japan, working as a photographer and model.Fact|date=March 2008 Upon returning to America, she enrolled at Columbia University,"Stop-Loss" press notes, Paramount Pictures] earning an MFA in film. Initially, Peirce pursued a story about a female soldier in drag during the American Civil War for her thesis,Fact|date=March 2008 but eventually nixed the plan due to a lack of personal connection with the story.Fact|date=March 2008

While attending Columbia, Peirce read a "Village Voice" articleFact|date=March 2008 about Brandon Teena, a transman raped and murdered in Falls City, Nebraska. Switching from her original thesis project, Peirce traveled to Falls City, where she researched and attended the trial of the two homicide suspects. The subsequent film short she made for her thesis in 1995 was nominated by Columbia faculty for a Princess Grace Award, and received an Astrea Production Grant. That grant and her involvement with the Sundance Institute;'s 1997 Sundance Filmmakers, Writers and Producers Labs helped her develop the short into the 1999 feature film "Boys Don't Cry".

Later life and career

Since then, she has directed an episode of the Showtime television series "The L Word", and the Paramount Pictures feature "Stop-Loss", (2008).

Canceled projects she worked on in the interim included co-writing the script "Silent Star", about the murder of silent movie director William Desmond Taylor, for the studio DreamWorks; a David Mamet script she would direct about gangster John Dillinger; directing the adaptation of author Dave Eggers' memoir "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"; and research for a Columbia Pictures film she would direct about the execution of the Israeli spy Eli Cohen. [Four projects per Valby, Karen, "War & Pierce", "Entertainment Weekly" #985, April 4, 2008, p. 38]

As of 2008, Peirce was co-writing a feature title "Sex, Secrets and Taboo in Suburbia", a romantic comedy with a "gender twist", and a New Orleans gangster movie. As of April 2008, Peirce lives with lesbian partner Evren Savci, "a Ph.D. candidate writing a double theses on gender and sexuality and Turkish modernization". [Valby, "Entertainment Weekly", p. 39]

Filmography

* "The Last Good Breath" (1994) (16mm short - director & writer):::Leopard of Tomorrow Program at 1994 Locarno International Film Festival
*"Boys Don't Cry" (1999) (director & writer)
*"The L Word" (2006) (director - 1 episode (Lifeline - 3x05), TV series)
*"Stop-Loss" (2008) (director & writer)

Awards

* Second place, Canada International Film Festival - "The Last Good Breath"
* Golden Award, Experiment Division, Chicago International Film Festival - "The Last Good Breath"
* First place, Suffolk Film Festival
* Best Debut Director - National Board of Review
* Best New Filmmaker - Boston Society of Film Critics

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2008/7/10/1367/66469/ Kimberly's interview with The Young Turks.]
*imdb name|id=0005303|name=Kimberly Peirce